Our knowledge and experience was an essential component of this new venture.

Glenavy, Canterbury

The project

One of our current projects involving a number of Babbage disciplines is the design and construction of Oceania’s state-of-the-art processing plant. Spread over 12 hectares, the plant is designed for production of milk powder for export to China where it will be used by Yili to produce infant formula.

This is a greenfield site project and will be developed in two stages – it is expected to reach full capacity in the 2016-17 milking season. Stage 1 was commissioned in spring 2014 and is now operating at 60 per cent capacity, utilising 180 million litres of milk to deliver 24,000 tonnes of milk powder per annum.

This 10 tonne per hour milk powder drier is capable of producing a range of milk powders from standard whole milk powders through to specialty powders and infant formula. It will ramp up to an annual full capacity of 47,000 tonnes by the 2016-17 year.

The scope of this project has included many of our key services – civil works, storm water, water supply, roading and infrastructure.

Partnering and innovation

For all of this to be enacted on time and within budget takes close coordination of all our teams and sub-contractors. It also requires innovation on design to meet resource consent requirements and reduce construction costs.

One such innovation is a specialised design for the storm water basins to match existing ground conditions (near surface impermeable layer) and provide greater soakage capacity for the large amount of storm water generated from the development.

The factory will ultimately employ 70 staff with around 40 farmer suppliers in the first season.